Tag Archives: web2.0

Imagine a group of primary school students spread throughout Victoria working together to implement major projects, to provide feedback to organisations about policy and other new initiatives being implemented whilst learning about citizenship and decision making. Sounds impressive. At present though, all we can do is imagine, because such an opportunity for primary school students does not exist.

Since 2001, secondary students have had Victorian Student Representative Council to speak and act on behalf of secondary students in schools throughout Victoria. Each year, the VicSRC holds Congress where students are able to put forward motions that are voted upon and then implemented by a student executive throughout the following year.

The primary equivalent to the VicSRC Congress would be FRENZY, which Second Strike has facilitated since 2008. Like the VicSRC Congress, a key feature of FRENZY is a Congress sitting. Students who attended are placed into discussion groups where they form motions to be tabled before the Congress. Motions are then moved in the Congress, debated and put before a formal vote. At each Congress, primary school students have moved and passed a motion for the creation of a state student representative group. However, without a student executive or organisation to lobby for action, many of these motions have failed to come to fruition.

VISTA has a number of primary school SRC teachers as members and they too have been asking about an equivalent organisation for primary students.

The VISTA executive is therefore leading the charge in establishing a VicJSC (Victorian Junior School Council)

Whilst ideas are still very much under development, the initial proposal would see membership open to government, private and catholic primary schools from across Victoria. Students would utilise online tools such as web 2.0 sites and online conferencing to connect with other students and implement the recommendations put forward at a state based congress. The use of online tools would eliminate the need for travel and would enable students in regional and remote locations the opportunity to participate.

The creation of a VicJSC would provide primary school students with a united voice. It would harness the collective power and enthusiasm of primary school students and provide them with an opportunity to focus on specific issues and activities.

A VicJSC network would also allow other students from across the state to learn about the workings of other student councils and improve the operations and workings of their own student council at their school. It would provide the education system and other organisations with a reference group to consult with when making major decisions and in turn, provide primary school students with the opportunity to understand, practice and experience democracy in a real-life context.

It’s time that the voice of our young people was heard, but more importantly, it’s time for them to be given an opportunity to turn their ideas into action.

How can you get involved ?

Add your school contact details to the form below and we’ll keep you posted with any updates.

Thanks to the wonderful world of twitter, I was made aware of a great free online resource the other day called minutes.io that I thought would be a great resource for student councils to be aware of.

This site allows you to generate minutes from a meeting using an online template.

After entering the headings you then need to enter the details of those present. Minute.io allows for sub-headings\topics down the side and breaks these into categories of TODO, OKAY, INFO, and IDEA. After the meeting, the program allows you to print off your minutes, e-mail your minutes to those who attended or publish the link for the minutes to a website for members or others to access.

Screen shot of my minutes using minut.io

The major drawback was that the website didn’t load with Internet Explorer; the main web browser used in schools. Those wanting to use it would need to access the site through an alternative browser such as Google Chrome, Firefox or Safari, however, for those looking for a template or easy way for students to take minutes, this site would be a great starting point.

– Need to create an account (Only require e-mail address to retrieve forgotton password)
– At first I found this a little hard to use. Realised that by leaving mouse over the textbox you get more options.

Possible Uses:– Have used concept mapping in the past with Senior Students (Grade 5\6 – ages 10-12) when watching Behind the News as a way of recording and displaying information.

Possible Uses:
– Pictures to support blog posts (I know the blog What Ed Said uses images created from this site extensivly in blog posts)
– Literacy activities: Create a procedure in the form of a comic.

Possible Uses:
– Have used this in the past to create tuning in videos for students prior to exploring a concept or idea. Did some work with our numeracy coach last year in creating videos to look at problem solving in maths. Check out Rhonda and Barry and their dog food challenge.
– Students create short videos to explain their learning.

Google Forms

I had seen this used before and had filled in forms for others, but only recently discovered\worked out how to set this up for myself. Previously when completing surveys, I had used the free version of Survey Monkey which limits the number of questions you can ask using your free acount. Google Forms (to my knowledge) doesn’t restrict the amount of data you can collect.

I have created an “Getting to know you” survey for students to complete when I start back at school this year to assess what they have done previously in ICT, what interests them and what they would like to explore in our lessons.

Completing this challenge though did remind me though of a recent conversation on Twitter. with regards to web 2.0 sites that were once free require you to pay for using their services once their popularity increases. As a teacher who struggles to promote Web 2.0 tools to others I work with, to only have a site be shut down or charge for services that were once free makes it that extra step harder to convince others to get on board.